We all have favourite hotels and personal preferences, but for this reviewer the Mirande is the best hotel of its type in Europe - and since you can't get the type outside Europe, as the essence of it is steeped in European history - perhaps the best of its type in the entire world. It's an old ecclesiastical nobleman's house, what used to be known as a 'hotel particulier', the former house of a cardinal in the very shadow of the grim granite walls of the papal palace. The triumph of the hotel has been to preserve the character and historic association of an 18th-century townhouse mansion, with its exquisite antiques, its hanging aubusson rugs, its carefully recreated (and in some cases original) 18th-century fabrics and chinoiserie, and its original and stunning architectural features - from the 15th-century coffered ceiling (double-caisson a la francaise) to its historically recreated kitchens, where cookery classes are held midweek when the restaurant is closed.

Downstairs the public reception rooms are fabulous (here is the coffered ceilings) and the courtyard has been ingeniously covered to create the restaurant. Upstairs, the 20 guestrooms have all been decorated 'a la mode', with Pierre Frey fabric, 18th-century wall coverings, fine antiques and, in most, separate showers. Most of the flooring is tiled in honeycomb terracotta, much of it original, with some parquet flooring and rugs in the rooms - the suite has wood panelled walls. There is also a two-room apartment in a separate building. A couple of the rooms have small terraces. Outside, a delightful small garden hugs the wall of the palace. In bustling and busy Avignon, La Mirande is an oasis of calm and quiet. It is privately owned, opened only in 1991.

La Mirande is a former cardinal’s palace overlooking the eastern side of the Palais des Papes in Avignon. The facade has been reinstated to its seventeenth-century splendour, and behind the doors lies an interior in which antiques, plasterwork, tapestries, original works of art, handmade carpets and parquet floors are without exception of the highest imaginable quality. The furnishings are masterfully arranged to convey freshness, style and comfort rather than the mausoleum-like atmosphere one could be forgiven for expecting.

In the midst of all this splendour lies a superb restaurant, providing deceptively simple yet masterful Provencal cuisine. The hotel also runs four-day traditional cooking classes, each day presided over by a master chef, in the inspiring surroundings of the nineteenth-century kitchen, all scrubbed wooden tables, stone flags and cast-iron stove.

The hotel’s 20 rooms are as exquisite as one might expect, lavish in every detail and filled with original artworks, handmade fabrics and antiques. Air conditioning, telephone, television, minibar, safe and jars of fine toiletries come as standard. Room service is on offer 24 hours a day. As one wag once remarked, if the pope had ended up at La Mirande instead of across the road, he might never have made it back to Rome…